Is there any American immigrant story—or a life story anywhere—that approaches the level of accomplishment that Arnold Schwarzenegger has achieved in the past 40-plus years? The best bodybuilder, the biggest movie star and the governor of California, a state that has the sixth largest economy in the world. If his life’s achievements were a fictional tale, it would be dismissed as impossible, an example of the writer’s fantasy.

Like fiction, however, it all started with Arnold’s imagination. With Arnold it always starts with want. He wanted to come to the United States because he believed that it held opportunity that could only be realized there, in America, where anything is possible. That vision of his future was made possible because of his love of bodybuilding.